Does SCRUM make sense for your company?

Before you decide to implement SCRUM in your organization, it's worth considering whether it really makes sense.?

Not every organization is ready for such a change, and not every organization will benefit from it. SCRUM is designed for complex and unpredictable products and relies on self-motivated and independent teams.

For example, if your business specialises in environments that are stable and requirements are crystal clear, such as building e-commerce shops on Shopify or WooCommerce, there's no need for SCRUM.

On the other hand, proper SCRUM requires an entire organisation to change its values and approach to building software, and some people may find it difficult to adapt, and not all developers are willing to take on too much responsibilities and accountability that being a SCRUM team member requires.

Start by understanding WHY, what you want to achieve and how you will know if you have succeeded or not.

The introduction of SCRUM should be preceded by a clear definition of your goals. Anwser yourself, why exactly do you want to use this framework and what do you want to achieve?

How will you be able to measure whether you've succeeded or not?

Think about this before you try to implement SCRUM.

You can also use OKRs for this, which can be related to the productivity and efficiency of the team, e.g. you'll reduce the number of defects by 20%, increase team engagement or satisfaction by 20%, or reduce the time it takes to deliver new features (increments).

Ensure that everyone in your organisation understands the SCRUM approach, its values and roles.

Before you start implementing SCRUM, make sure that everyone understands its principles. This means no more project managers interfering with the work of the team, no more stakeholders throwing new tasks directly into the team's backlog, and many other changes that will involve different levels of the organization.

You should understand the roles and responsibilities of the team, the Product Owner and the SCRUM Master.

However, in real life, the majority of software developers consider SCRUM Master as an unnecessary evil and don't see any point in such a position, and there is and still is a PM who rushes the team and chooses their sprint shuffle and the Sprint Goal is an artificial creation that few people take to heart.

The conclusion is simple - the better people understand SCRUM, the easier it will be to implement.

It is worth adding that the SCRUM guide is only 14 pages long and takes literally 15 minutes to read. You can find it here: https://scrumguides.org/index.html

Consider external training

The company should consider training employees in SCRUM with some external SCRUM coaches. All employees should take part in it, not just the development team.

Such trainer should be able to give use cases for a proper SCRUM introduction, create appropriate OKRs and make sure that everyone understands SCRUM principles in the same way.

Introduce change gradually - people resist change

People are generally resistant to change - "we don't need it", "we've tried it before and it didn't work", "it's good as it is, why touch it" are all things you can expect to hear.

Introduce changes gradually. Give people a few months' notice that you're introducing a new framework so they can prepare.

Contact all managers to prepare their teams for the change. SCRUM may also mean that managers will no longer be needed and some positions will become irrelevant, while new ones may emerge.?

For example, some people who are Project Managers may, over time, become Product Owners or SCRUM Masters.?

Start slowly, just by introducing sprints, and gradually extend SCRUM to other parts of the organization.

Creating a self-sufficient team should contribute to greater motivation and engagement, and these are metrics worth tracking as the (r)evolution takes place.

There will be chaos at first

Look at this diagram:

First introduced by Virginia Satir, a change psychologist, it applies to all change, both personal and organizational.

Expect chaos at first - productivity will drop, people will get discouraged and metrics will drop as well.

However, it will only be a temporary change because after a few sprints you will notice that things are getting better, people are happier and after a few months you will compare the metrics from before the change (I deliberately don't write SCRUM here because it's about any change) and, hopefully, you will notice that all things have improved - even up to 4x.

Consider frameworks like LeSS, Nexus or SAFe

There are a number of frameworks that can help you introduce SCRUM to your organisation, especially if it's large and complex.

The most popular are LeSS (Large Scale Scrum), Nexus or SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework).

These frameworks are designed to take SCRUM to scale and help coordinate the work of multiple teams.?

LeSS focuses on simplifying the organizational structure, Nexus focuses on managing the integration of team efforts, and SAFe offers a comprehensive approach to managing large projects.?

Choosing the right framework depends on the specifics and needs of your organization.

Good luck!